Friends, we have arrived, at last, in India. India: land of cows. Land of curry. Land of Kolkata. Other things beginning with a percussive /k/. Fully one-half of our Big Wild Asia Megasojourn occurred within India, and I have lots and lots to say about its ups, its downs, and its soggy, curd-filled middles. But before we get to that, let us now, as we always must, sit through a round of Michael’s photography. Don’t think you can just traipse in here and scoop up only the words. Sometimes you need to endure my other hobbies, so that I can give the old word-grinder (that’s what I call my brain) a rest.
India: let’s look at it.
First we stop in Delhi, where I have only two or three worthwhile shots from several days of shooting. It was, essentially, too smoggy to capture anything of substance without a delirious grey haze embossed over the shot. I have a lot to say regarding Delhi’s weather, but we’ll get to that later.
India’s population, its air, and its traffic were already making us travel gun-shy, so from Delhi we whisked off to Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj for some peace and tranquility, some Tibetan food, and also some mountain goats.
My jaunt in Amritsar featured a happy fun-time explosion of stomach illness, and thus I am bereft of quality photography capturing the home of Sikhism. Luckily, the following city of Jaipur proved picturesque enough to make up for the dearth.
What’s that, you say? You want to see some enormous astronomical tools from scenic and historic Jantar Mantar? Never let it be said that Stupid Ugly Foreigner doesn’t listen to your requests, non-existent interlocutor.
From here, let us travel to picturesque Bundi, wedged out in desert and scrubland, home of a really cool abandoned palace, a really cool abandoned and empty fortress, and a horde of really angry monkeys who will absolutely fuck you up if they get the chance. I only show you one picture in this following burst, because every other time they were around I was mostly swinging a big stick at them to stop them from stealing my breakfast or giving me monkey rubella or whatever.
The palace was adorned with some pretty cool (and deteriorating) murals from ages past. My Hinduism fails me on the second of these paintings, but if anyone wants to talk about Krisha or the gopis for a while, I’ll be hanging out in the comments with my religion degree, eager and hopeful.
And finally, Bhimlat falls. Bask in this enormous (and at the time, dangerously overflowing) waterfall in the middle of a giant Rajasthani desert. Enjoy this old lady who was wandering by and kindly acquiesced to our requests for a photo, because her attire was brilliantly coloured, and also she seemed to appear from absolutely out of nowhere.
As always, click through any of the photos to be whisked away to flickr, where you can gaze upon the full set, and all the other dumb photos I’ve ever taken. And tune in soon for words to accompany these stunning pixels.
Then the lady went home and wrote a blog post titled “I am in some White Peoples’ Vacation Photos.” ;D
Well-played.
As a sidenote, if this lady wrote a blog, I’d read the shit out of it.
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